Derek Fisher on his famous 0.4 shot vs. Spurs: ‘For a long time it reminded me of a down year, if that makes sense because we lost in the Finals to the Pistons, so I’m like ‘I don’t want to remember 2004’, but you can’t escape the moment. Yeah the play wasn’t design for me, and if you’re on a team with Kobe and Shaq, the play is not for you. I’m not mad about that at all either.
So the play wasn’t designed for me, it was really the gravitational pull that the two of those guys have by pulling players towards them, like I just kind of stood there and waited for the right moment to go to the open space and I always give Gary Payton a ton of credit because he was taking the ball out and most guys will force it to the superstars in that situation, because they don’t want to be the one that have to explain ‘why you tried to throw it to this dude as opposed to try to throw it to Kobe or Shaq?!’ So I always give GP major love for making like what was the right basketball decision, it ended up working out but a lot of dudes would have forced that ball to to Kobe or Shaq.’
Source: YouTube
Source: YouTube
More on this storyline
Derek Fisher: ‘That energy from Kobe was like on the surface of everything that we did from that season on. That’s what really drove the ’09, the 2010 push was’ we are never going to experience that feeling again bro that we just experienced in ’08’. and so when we get to the cusp of winning the title in ’09 like yeah you know the Shaq energy of like winning one without Shaq energy of like winning one without Shaq is there, more of that was media, then Kobe really like carrying it around every day. Even though you knew in the back of his mind like it was there but it wasn’t just about I want to show Shaq, it was also the same people that were questioning whether or not he could actually lead a team to a championship without Shaq. It was also for them too, so it wasn’t so much of a like ‘I gotta show Shaq this’, it was also for the writers and the newspaper people and the ones that ‘Kobe can’t win without shag’, ‘Kobe can’t do this, he doesn’t know how to be a leader’. He also wanted to I think confirm his ability to to lead a team to the top.’
-via YouTube
/ January 7, 2025
Derek Fisher on Kobe Bryant wanting to win NBA title without Shaq: ‘I’m not stupid. I knew that was a significant part of what was driving him. I knew that wasn’t the only thing driving him. Part of it in ’09 was also the loss to the Celtics in ’08.
By the time we got back together to start training camp in ’08 going into ’09 it’s hard to describe bro how… you know those stories of how magic and Larry Bird talked about how they used to each wake up the next morning and get to read the paper and see which one did what and then they had to go out the next night like… that’s how much we were paying attention to what the Boston cels were doing. We were obsessed with the Celtics… like bro they got us in ’08, cool, enjoy your title, but that will never happen again.’ -via YouTube
/ January 7, 2025
Jorge Sierra: Paul George passed Tracy McGrady in scoring yesterday. He’s No. 76 all-time now.
Also: Jrue Holiday moved past Kobe Bryant in assists for No. 34 in NBA history. -via Bluesky
/ January 3, 2025